Toshiba Successfully Demonstrates Nearline HDDs with Massive Capacity of Over 30 Terabytes
May 14, 2024
Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation
Kawasaki, Japan－Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation (Toshiba) has successfully achieved storage capacities of over 30TB[1] with two next-generation large capacity recording technologies for hard disk drives (HDDs): Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR). The demonstration drives represent a major milestone in the advance toward commercial products based on each of these emerging recording formats.
HAMR, one of the two technologies that are driving forward next-generation high-capacity data recording, boosts magnetic recording capabilities by locally heating the disk with near-field light. Toshiba achieved 32TB on 10 disks and adoption of Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology. Toshiba plans to start shipping test sample[2] HDDs with HAMR technology in 2025.
The other technology is MAMR, which uses microwaves to enhance magnetic recording capabilities. Toshiba was the first[3] to demonstrate its effectiveness and started mass production of first-generation drives in 2021. Toshiba achieved 31TB by stacking 11 disks, utilizing SMR technology, and improving signal processing.
These new achievements were made possible through years of close collaborative work with Resonac Corporation, a HDD media manufacturer, and TDK Corporation, a HDD head manufacturer. Toshiba and its working partners are committed to continue developing both HAMR and MAMR technologies in order to provide higher capacity HDDs to meet the growing storage demand of the cloud and datacenters.
A technical lecture detailing the demonstration will be presented at the IDEMA Symposium scheduled for May 16. For more details, visit the IDEMA website at IDEMA Japan (Japanese only)
For more information on Toshiba’s full line of HDD storage products,
[1] Definition of capacity: One terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes, but storage capacity actually available may vary, depending on operating environment and formatting. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system and/or pre-installed software applications, or media content. Actual formatted capacity may vary.
[2] The test sample capacity aims for 28 to 30TB with Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) format.
[3] Toshiba research, as of December 24, 2021
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